The Sound of Nature

Butterflies in flight make no sound. And as a high school science
teacher, you'd think Jim Centorino would know better than to challenge
such an immutable law of nature.

But that didn't stop Centorino, a part-time composer and musician,
from including the blue butterfly on "Ivory," an album of musical
portraits of endangered species. Most of the featured animals on the
recording--the gray wolf, the African elephant, the toucan parrot--make
familiar growls and squawks. But the butterfly?

Stranger still, Centorino set out to capture the essence of the
butterfly after a lifetime spent playing the trumpet, probably the
instrument least suited to the delicate creature.

At age 4, Centorino asked his parents for a trumpet. And he got it.
All through his childhood in Salem, Mass., and his teenage years at a
New England prep school, he played anywhere he could find an audience.
Even after his school band split up, he would still go to football
games and sit in the stands belting out Sousa. "I'm a ham sandwich
without the bread," he admits.

After college, Centorino broadened his musical talents and tastes at
the Boston Conservatory of Music. Always fascinated by film soundtracks
and themes, he eventually landed in West Hills, Calif., and studied
under Albert Harris, the man who wrote what is arguably one of
television's most famous theme songs: the opening to "Hawaii
Five-0."

"Ivory," released last year by World Disc Music, is Centorino's
first solo album. On several tracks, he even ditches his beloved
trumpet in favor of keyboards floating over a background of harp and
computer-generated music.

So far, the album has sold 25,000 copies and received high marks
from the likes of Stereo Review and a handful of other reviewers.
You'll find it at zoos, amusement parks, and "virtually anyplace that
sells crystals or telescopes," Centorino says.

The Nature Company eagerly sought to distribute the album until it
learned that gunshots rang out on the title track, which depicts the
African elephant. Centorino did bow to the Nature Company's commercial
concerns and agreed to make a second version of the album without the
shots.

But he held firm when producers tried to add butterfly "noises" by
mixing in something that sounded like crinkling cellophane. "This won't
make it," Centorino told them. "Butterflies don't make noise. They
don't even fly if it's windy."

-- Drew Lindsay

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